Call of the Void
by sangheilitat117
Summary: A black storm is coming. Something has awoken, an omniscient force that unites and drives the Grimm towards their ultimate goal: the annihilation of all life on Remnant. Armies mobilize, battles begin, cities burn, and Ruby Rose and her team are caught in the middle. But does Ruby have more of a part to play than she realizes?
1. Chapter 1 - Prologue

The sun set the sea of clouds on fire.

As Ruby Rose squinted her eyes against the glare and hung out of the open troop compartment door of a K-37 Nighthawk gunship, she realized she was looking at heaven on earth.

Oceans of shining cloud formations stretched out below her, obscuring the ground beneath a sea of shimmering gold and reflected sun-rays. The sky was muted: a dark blue mixed with a deep purple that contrasted with the amber clouds beautifully.

Ruby leaned out of the right side of the VTOL gunship as far out as she dared to, took off her re-breather mask for just a second, and took a deep breath of the cool pre-dusk air. It would be night soon, and the air was made even colder due to the fact that it was streaming past her at over five hundred kilometers per hour.

She looked behind her, and saw more Nighthawks following them in a flying V formation. They looked like metal birds of prey with down-swept wings, armed to the teeth with rocket pods, missiles, and rotary cannons. They bobbed and dipped in the unpredictable air currents this high up, but it was a matter of necessity. Nevermores couldn't reach this altitude.

After observing the deadly magnificence of the gunship fleet for a few more seconds, Ruby glanced into the troop compartment to check on the men and women she was flying with. A Nighthawk could hold a full squad, roughly twelve soldiers with all their accompanying gear and weapons. Eleven soldiers in full grey, solid-plated combat armor either cleaned their weapons, chatted with eachother, or slept. Although since she couldn't tell who was sleeping and who wasn't, since they all wore armored re-breather helmets with tinted yellow lenses and pointed chins, she thought a few might even be staring at her.

She returned to the compartment door and looked out over the clouds again. The view was peaceful, and helped keep her mind off of the upcoming battle. She had found that the waiting was the hardest part. Once you were actually in the storm of battle you disconnected, fell back on your training and muscle memory, and simply did what had to be done. But the waiting... that was the worst. A hunt was different, because you were in control of what happened and how it happened – or least any Hunter worth their salt was.

But she knew she had no control over the upcoming battle, aside from the swings and cuts she performed with Crescent Rose, her trusty sniper rifle-scythe. She knew she had control over the Grimm immediately surrounding her. But if the soldiers around her were slaughtered, and the Grimm surged forward like a black tide, she knew there was nothing she could do to prevent it from swallowing her whole.

She sighed and adjusted the thick plates of leather covering her torso, shoulders, and thighs. She didn't like wearing this much armor, but it was an absolutely necessity. When you were on the front lines, face to face with howling, screaming Grimm, you needed as much protection as you could get. At least leather was a good compromise between weight, flexibility, and durability. She could still use her semblance, which she doubted she would be able to if she was wearing something heavier.

As she watched, a cluster of large STOTS – surface to orbit to surface – missiles broke through the cloud layer, heading straight towards the sun like Icarus from the old stories. Then they reached their apex point, curved downward, and flew straight back towards the earth. They disappeared again once they reached the clouds.

She grinned and wondered how many Grimm they had killed.

The pilot yelled back from his compartment, and even then she could only barely make out his words over the roar of the wind. "Might want to shut that door! Descent starts in one mike!"

"It's fine!" she yelled back. "I'll keep it open if that's cool!" She looked at the other troops. "You guys cool with that?"

Some nodded, some gave a thumbs up, and others kept sleeping.

She stuck her head into the narrow passageway that connected the cockpit and the troop compartment. "Yeah, I'll keep it open!"

He shrugged. "If you get sucked out or some shit it's your funeral!"

She grinned and re-took her spot by the door, looking out over the closest thing to heaven she knew she would ever see for a long time.

A minute passed, and then the jet engines of the VTOL gunship began to whine louder as they started their descent. The nose dipped forward into a sheer dive, and next thing she knew they were pointed almost straight at the clouds. Her stomach lurched into her throat, and the sense of vertigo was almost overwhelming.

Her heart rate picked up as they fell. She grinned madly, then whipped her head behind her to see the other Nighthawks mirroring them in a metaphorical and literal fall from heaven.

They hit the cloud wall and everything went black; they might have been golden on top, but underneath there were brutal storm clouds. Lightning flashed through the darkness and rain whipped into the troop compartment, but she only laughed as an exhilarating feeling rushed through her body like the lighting itself was striking her.

She wasn't afraid of death. She _was_ death.

They broke through the clouds, fell from heaven, and descended straight into a black hell of fire and death.

Battle raged from one end of the horizon to the other. Endless oceans of Grimm flowed and slammed into miles-long cliff faces made of armor and steel and men, and she could only imagine how many lives were being snuffed out with each second.

Nevermores circled and wheeled overhead, agilely maneuvering around surface-to-air missiles, clouds of flak, and red-hot streams of tracer fire. Formations of Nighthawks and other gunships performed strafing and bombing runs, some bursting into flame and spiraling towards the ground as they were picked out of the air by the massive black birds of death.

As she watched, a Nevermore slammed into a gunship with it's outstretched claws, dragged it several miles through the air, and then flung it into a horde of troops rushing towards the front line.

Fires raged, artillery rounds and missiles arced through the air, and even over the scream of the gunship's engines she could hear the massed roars of hundreds of millions of Grimm and the answering voices of the humans and faunus they fought.

They dove closer and closer to the ground, then leveled out at the last second. The battle rushed by below her faster than the eye could process, but she caught flashes of storms of machine gun fire, massive Grimm creatures, and brutal hand-to-hand combat.

The gunships were delivering her and the elite platoon she was with right into the heart of the battle, where the fighting was the worst and their need to win ground the greatest. That was all that really mattered in this war: ground. Even if you lost a hundred lives and only gained three inches, it was worth it. This war was being measured in yards and metres, not lives.

Ruby ducked her head as the rotary cannons mounted on the Nighthawk's wings started to spin up, before unleashing a blistering stream of white-hot rounds that joined with the fire of the other Nighthawks, raced ahead of them, and split apart the onrushing mass of Grimm.

"This is your stop! Good luck out there!" the pilot yelled.

The gunships slowed to a stop, hovering a few feet above the ground. Ruby waited for the rest of the soldiers to drop out of the troop compartment, then just as she was out about to jump, someone cried out "Crow!"

She whipped her head up just in time to see a Nevermore fill her vision with it's black mass. It slammed into the side of the gunship, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she was flung out and into open space. She hit the rocky ground hard and rolled for a long time.

When she stopped, she realized with a start that she couldn't hear the battle anymore. In fact, there was no sound at all.

In a panic, she opened her eyes.

* * *

><p>And found hell. True hell, not the hell of combat.<p>

She was in the middle of a street, and all around her stretched a dead, burning city. The buildings were old and crumbling, shattered stone and derelict wreckage. The burnt out husks of long-abandoned vehicles sat in the streets, like the lingering ghosts of a fallen monolith.

She picked herself up slowly, wincing as her hands dug themselves into broken stone and blacktop. The disorientation she felt was total, and she spun in slow circles as her mind tried to make sense of the place she found herself in. Vaguely, she realized that she was in another dream. She thought they would have become familiar by now: the dream-nightmares she had a consistent basis, but they were always so eery and disconcerting that she never grew used to them.

The burning light of fires in the buildings stung her eyes, and she shielded herself from the glare. As she looked closer, she realized she couldn't find any source of the flames. Something about this dead city told her that it had been this way for ages, if not aeons. And worse, she couldn't shake the feeling of something watching her. Her eyes were drawn to a distant shape on the shattered crown of a skyscraper, but just as she focused on it, it vanished.

She turned again, and found something from a nightmare.

Roughly a dozen feet away, standing in the midst of the decaying street, was a figure. A giant of a figure with skeletal limbs and a skull for a face, dressed in a tattered red cloak. Black fires blazed in the pits of it's eyes, and she found she couldn't look away, much as she wanted to.

As she watched in horror and fascination, it slowly raised a clenched fist towards her. It opened the fist, and a metal square cross fell out and hung in the air, suspended by a chain wrapped around it's wrist. As it stared at her with empty eyes, she felt the weight of timeless death and an impending doom. Whatever this apparition was, it was as ancient as the city, perhaps more so.

It opened it's mouth as if to speak, and a sudden terror seized her in a vice grip.

* * *

><p>And then she woke.<p>

Not suddenly, as she was used to this by now. The sharp pain piercing her heart was as familiar as an old scar, but that didn't lessen it at all. She clutched at her chest and breathed slow, closing her eyes and letting the real world seep it's way back into her consciousness.

The first thing she felt was the softness of a bed, sheets tangled around her body, and the abject emptiness of that bed. It felt strange and somehow wrong, like the bed shouldn't be empty, but was. Then she realized what it was missing.

Weiss.

Next she realized that the bed was gently swaying, rocking like a boat on the open ocean. Awareness rushed back into her, and she realized that she _was_ on a boat in the open ocean. The small cabin she was in was familiar now, it was the small, well-furnished cabin of the boat she and Weiss had rented for their anniversary. Weiss had always had a secret love for the ocean, and when Ruby had suggested that they rent a boat and sail out into the waves to spend a few days together, the former heiress had practically jumped at the prospect. Which is to say that she protested far less than she did about most things.

Weiss' absence was like an aching hole in her heart, and she stood and began making her stumbling way out of the cabin, the need to find her girlfriend of nearly five years almost overpowering. She felt like a small child lost without her mother, although the love she felt for Weiss was far more than platonic.

She stood and flexed her right arm, listening to make sure the servos were whirring just right. The prosthetic limb was mechanical, part modern tech and part dust. It felt just like a regular limb, moved as well as one could too. But it was also faster and stronger. She marveled at the technology that had gone into it, and also at the fact that Weiss' mother had actually paid for it after Weiss had told her what had happened out in the Tural mountains. The former heiress' relations with her mother were steadily improving, and that made Ruby happy. Weiss deserved to have at least one good family member.

After adjusting her loose-fitting shirt and making sure that the locket Weiss had giver her was still securely around her neck, she stepped out on to the bow. The night air was calm and perfectly cool. The ocean stretched out in all directions, tinged with a strange teal-green where the water met the sky.

Weiss was there, glowing faintly in the starlight and moonlight both in the sky and reflecting off of the calm surface of the ocean. She was leaning against the metal railing on the starboard side of the ship, with her face upturned to the endless night. The former heiress was clad in a flowing white nightgown, one with open slits below the waistline on the sides that left most of her gorgeous, porcelain-like legs bare. Ruby remembered her saying something about wanting to feel the ocean breeze on her skin.

The older girl turned her head at the sound of approaching footsteps, and a small smile graced her terribly beautiful face. "Ruby," she greeted. Her Alice-blue eyes sparkled like the stars in the sky, stealing the breath from the one she had named.

Ruby came up behind her and wrapped her arms around the smaller woman's midsection. She buried her face in Weiss' sweet-smelling hair and let out a deep, long breath, full of unanswered questions and half-glimpsed premonitions of things to come.

"Another dream?" Weiss asked, as if she already knew the answer to the question.

Ruby simply nodded her answer against the other woman's shoulder.

"What was this one about?"

Ruby hesitated before answering. The dreams were hard to explain, but it wasn't due to them being difficult to remember. She could see them in her mind as clearly as if they were still happening. It just felt somehow wrong to bring them out into the waking world.

"Well," she started, "there was a battle first. It was massive, and there were so many Grimm that you couldn't even see the ground they were on. There were humans and faunus too, all fighting for their lives. I don't even know what they were fighting over."

"Were you in it?"

Ruby nodded again. "Yeah, I was in some sort of gunship or airship going to the front lines. Right when I got there though, a Nevermore crashed into us and I blacked out."

"And then?" Weiss tone was gentle, but insistent.

"Then I was in a city. A dead one, all abandoned. I got the impression that it had been that way for a long, long time."

Weiss clasped her hands over the ones Ruby had wrapped around her waist and squeezed them gently. It helped.

"There was something watching me too. When I looked at it, it vanished, but then it reappeared behind me. It was... It was some sort of skeleton. But not the spooky kind you use to scare children, this thing was like, genuinely terrifying somehow. Like I was looking at my own death. It had a cloak like mine, but all tattered and faded. It had something in it's fist too. It was my cross, the one that Jaerla told us about. I don't know what that means. Anyway, it opened it's mouth to say something, and then I woke up."

"Hmm," Weiss muttered. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Ruby repeated. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because you keep having these nightmares. Because I can't help you, no matter how much I wish I could."

Ruby smiled for the first time that night. "You're helping me more than you know. Just by being here with me."

Weiss leaned back further into her embrace, and the feel of the older woman's body pressed up against her own was familiar, and yet still somehow new. They fit together like they had been designed to.

"I'm sorry I wasn't in bed when you awoke. I couldn't sleep."

Ruby fought to keep a rising panic from her voice, but failed. "Are you having nightmares too?"

"No, no, nothing like that. It was nothing special. Plus, I wanted to come out here and watch the ocean. Stare at the horizon. See the stars. I like the ocean best at night, you know. It and the sky merge together so seamlessly that you can't tell where one ends the other begins, and it feels like a place where anything is possible."

Ruby felt the tension leave her body as the words left the former heiress' lips, and she leaned her neck around the capture them briefly. The kiss was short, but conveyed everything it needed to: her love, her desire, her longing to be with the other girl and the happiness that she had Weiss all to herself.

Then she sat down on one of the cushioned leather benches lining the forward edge of the bow, and pulled Weiss into her lap. The older girl snuggled into her embrace, rested her head on Ruby's shoulder, and grinned. Their auras slipped together like they had a hundred times before, but that didn't make it feel any less special or breath-taking.

"Anything is possible, huh?" Ruby asked with a touch of humor in her voice. "Like a beautiful woman like you loving a dolt like me?"

"Exactly things like that," Weiss replied, her face close enough to Ruby's that she didn't have to do more than whisper. "Things like a dolt I met at a Hunting academy saving me from my family and giving me a new life with her."

Ruby giggled. "I think I'd like to hear that story."

"I'll tell it if you bring a blanket from the bed. I'm starting to feel tired again."

"But what if you fall asleep while you're telling the story?" she pouted.

"I won't you dunce. Now go get us a blanket."

Ruby complied, gently lifting Weiss off of her and retreating inside the cabin to grab a smooth white blanket off the bed. She stepped back out onto the bow, and smirked as she saw Weiss trying to make it look like she hadn't been staring at her.

She sat back down and pulled Weiss back into her lap, and the former heiress immediately snuggled into her warm, muscular frame. The older woman was blushing profusely by the time Ruby had finished wrapping them up in the blanket.

"So about that story..." Ruby began.

"Fine, just don't interrupt me. I hate interruptions."

Ruby giggled. "As you wish Princess."

"Dolt," Weiss scoffed. "So the story begins with the heiress of the Schnee Dust corporation, and her first day at Beacon Academy. She finally gets her cart of precious dust off of the airship without any major mishaps or spillages, and then lo and behold, an idiot of a fifteen-year old girl stumbles into the cart and spills the dust everywhere..."

The ocean breeze was cool on her face and Weiss' body was warm in her lap. There was a glow of heat in her chest as well, somewhere deep in her heart, one that was always there whenever she got the chance to hold Weiss in her arms. She smiled deep and sincere as the older girl talked. Not only did she love the sound of her voice, but this also happened to be her favorite story.

* * *

><p><em><strong>And thus begins a new chapter in Ruby and Weiss' story.<strong>_

_**Chronologically, this takes place about two years after their graduation from Beacon, and one year after Bloodbirds. Ruby has a prosthetic limb replacing her right arm at this point, a wonderful fusion of modern technology and dust that is stronger and faster than her old arm could have ever been.**_

_**If you missed the story of how that happened, go read Bloodbirds on my profile.**_

_**If you're here from Can You Feel My Heart, be aware that this story will not be a copy of that one. This one will have much more action and combat; expect it to feel more like a military fiction novel than a romance novel. Rest assured the story will still focus on Ruby and Weiss, and I'll try to have at least one fluff scene per chapter. I know what you guys are here for. Blake and Yang will have their screen time too.** _

_**I have very ambitious plans for this story, and you'll see a lot of foreshadowing from CYFMH coming to fruition soon.** **Anyway, here's to the start of a brand new story, one I hope you all enjoy. **_

_**If you're wondering who made that sick-ass cover image, all credit goes to The Great Weiss Shark. You can find them either here or on tumblr, but I'd definitely suggest checking them out here. If you need a little Whiterose fluff, their story Where You Belong is definitely the antidote.**_

_**If you have the time, please drop a review and let me know how the battle scene in the beginning felt. I'm going to write a lot more of those types of scenes in the future. **_

_**Thank for taking the time to read.**_


	2. Chapter 2 - Visions

Each step was a battle; every foot forward a war.

And it was one Ruby was losing.

She stumbled on the last few stairs, then fell headfirst down onto the living room floor. Luckily for her though, her impact was cushioned by the pile of blankets she was wrapped in. Groaning, she stood, and stumbled her way into the kitchen, where her partner was busy making breakfast.

"Well look who's finally up," Weiss muttered. She reached up into a cabinet and grabbed a bottle of seasoning, then put the finishing touches on a steaming pan of eggs and bacon.

Ruby muttered something incomprehensible, and then suddenly Weiss felt herself being pulled down onto the floor. She shrieked, but Ruby simply opened the cocoon of blankets and pulled her inside. Weiss struggled for a few seconds, then realized the futility of battling the much stronger girl when she wanted cuddles.

Weiss resigned herself to her fate and shifted around, so that she was snuggled up tight against a very sleepy Ruby. "Ugh, the bacon is going to burn if I don't take it out of the pan you dunce."

"This is punishment for making me wake up," Ruby broke off and yawned, "m-making me wake up by myself. Thirty more seconds."

The former heiress groaned, but wrapped her arms tightly around Ruby's waist anyway. The brunette giggled appreciatively.

Weiss pressed her face against the warmth of her partner's chest and sighed. "I'm sorry, I suppose, for making you wake up alone. I wanted to make us a good breakfast since we have a hunt today. Breakfast _is_ the most important meal of the day you know."

"Yeah yeah," Ruby muttered. She opened the blanket cocoon and Weiss stood up, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

Weiss scooped the egg-bacon mix onto two plates while Ruby stumbled her way into a seat at the kitchen table. The brunette promptly let her head drop to the wood and started snoring away. Weiss smirked. Even after almost five years of knowing her, Ruby still did the most adorable things.

The silver-haired woman pushed a plate of steaming breakfast under Ruby's nose, and she watched as the steam from it curled in the air and drifted into the brunette's nostrils. Ruby's eyes snapped open, and she immediately shrugged off the blankets and started digging in.

Her shoulders slumped and she gazed up at the ceiling, and tears were gathering in her eyes as she muttered through a mouthful of bacon. "O_ooo_h Weissh, thish is sho g_oooo_d..."

Weiss started picking at her breakfast. "Thank you, but don't talk with your mouth full. And did you go over the briefing I put together for the hunt we're doing today?"

Ruby looked confused as she finally swallowed her food. "Uh, what?"

Weiss quirked an eyebrow at her. "I left it right on your side of the bed. So that you'd see it before you fell asleep."

"Uuuh..."

Weiss huffed and went back to her breakfast. "I figured as much. Finish your breakfast and I'll explain."

The two women proceeded to eat in silence, although they did occasionally glance at eachother. Halfway through the meal, looking through her silver bangs, Weiss caught Ruby staring at her for a good half-minute.

"You should finish your food before it gets cold," Weiss said.

Ruby looked startled. "Huh? What, uh – oh yeah. Breakfast. Right."

Weiss smirked. "You were staring at me."

Ruby managed to look sheepish with a mouthful of bacon. She swallowed before speaking. "Yeah, sorry. You just uh, like, looked really pretty for a second."

The former heiress raised an eyebrow. "Only for a second?"

"W-Well no," Ruby hurried to explain. "I mean you look pretty all the time, but like your eyes were kind of hidden by your bangs and your hair looks super gorgeous when it's down like that and especially when it's messy because you haven't fixed it yet, and I was just kinda glad because I'm the only one who gets to see your hair when it's not fixed and-"

"Ruby," Weiss interrupted with a warm smile. "It's fine. I think you're pretty too."

The brunette blushed and went back to eating her breakfast.

They finished, and Ruby picked up the plates and put them in the sink while Weiss fixed herself a cup of tea and Ruby a cup of coffee. Cream and five sugars, as always.

They sat back down at the kitchen table with their respective drinks.

"So," Weiss began, "you don't know anything about this hunt then, is that correct?"

Ruby scratched the back of her neck. "Uh, would you kill me if I said no?"

Weiss simply took a sip of her tea. "Basically, there's a village to the north of here called Openfaust, and several of the villagers and local logging crews have been reporting sightings of a deathstalker. The loggers leave their heavy equipment behind at night; they can't afford guards for them. And some of the equipment has been found smashed and destroyed the next morning, and the damage is consistent with recorded deathstalker attacks."

Ruby took a sip of her coffee and flinched. "Ouch, hot!" She quickly set down her mug and looked at it like it had betrayed her. "Um, so just a deathstalker? That shouldn't really be a problem."

"Right," Weiss agreed. "But remember what happened during our first hunt around here? When the ursa were waiting for us when we finished off the beowolves? I just want to take the necessary precautions to make sure we don't get caught off guard again. I've been reading the reports of other Hunters operating in the area, and they all seem to indicate that the Grimm are starting to, well, work together for lack of a better term."

"Well I'm sure we'll be fine," Ruby quipped. "We've got eachother's backs after all."

"That we do," Weiss replied. She took another sip of her tea, then gazed into the cup and frowned. "Ruby, have you been having your nightmares lately?"

"Nope!" Ruby replied with a certain amount of cheer. "I don't want to jinx myself, but I think they're gone."

Weiss smiled. "Let's hope so."

* * *

><p>"Are you sure this is the place Weiss..." Ruby trailed off. She spun in a small circle, taking in the forest around her. She wore her hair back in a small ponytail, while Weiss wore hers loose. They were both clad in earth-green cloaks that helped them blend in with the surrounding forest.<p>

The mid-day sun filtered through the dense canopy above them, and a few stray leaves gently floated down to earth. The smell of petrichor and old wood lingered in the air. There was no breeze.

It would have been the perfect scene for a picnic for two, if it wasn't for the graves. They were everywhere: hundreds of simple stone tablets protruding from the forest floor seemingly at random. Some were half-buried in trees, some were sticking out at an angle, and some were collapsed and buried in leaves. They were old, covered in moss, and the writing on them was faded beyond recognition.

Weiss turned to Ruby, her hair sun-dappled and shining. "It is quite... strange, I have to admit. There wasn't anything about a cemetery in the briefing I received."

Ruby made a strange face. "This place is ancient. Look, you can't even read these tombstones anymore. Isn't all the civilization around here pretty new though?"

Weiss frowned. "You're right. All the development around here is fresh. The towns and even Terser itself are all new."

"So who builds a graveyard in the middle of a forest, when there's no towns or cities around for miles and miles?"

Weiss crouched down to examine one of the tombstones, brushing old vines and dead leaves off of it. "Maybe there was a battle here."

Ruby tapped her chin. "Eh, maybe. But don't armies usually just burn the dead in big pyres and stuff?"

Weiss stood and brushed her green cloak off. "That usually depends on the army. Some of the old Theopathic orders used to have elaborate ceremonies for their fallen that lasted longer than the battle itself."

"Huh. Weird. Hey, look at that."

Weiss followed Ruby's pointing finger to a particularly large tombstone that had been cut in half.

"Think a deathstalker did that?" Ruby asked.

Weiss walked over to it, careful to avoid the thick roots and collapsed tombstones on the forest floor. She only needed one look at it up close to confirm Ruby's suspicions.

"Definitely. Those are deathstalker claw marks. It looks like it cut the tombstone in half with its claw."

Ruby moved to stand next to Weiss. "Why would it do that?"

"Didn't you learn anything from advanced Grimm behavior?" Weiss scoffed. "It's the same as a cat scratching a scratching post."

"Well, there are more further on," Ruby gestured. "And it looks like it does it more and more the further into the graveyard we get. This thing has probably been here for a while now. Is it marking it's territory?"

"Probably," Weiss agreed. "Let's move up." She unsheathed Myrtenaster from its scabbard on her hip. "But stay on your guard."

Ruby unslung Crescent Rose and extended it, then rested it on her shoulder. She turned and shot Weiss a smug grin. "Well duh Princess." Then she shot off into the graveyard, leaving behind rose petals that slowly sank to the ground.

Weiss grit her teeth and followed.

* * *

><p>"Hey Weiss, look what I found!" Ruby shouted from up ahead, where she was perched atop a fallen tree.<p>

Weiss ran up to her. "Hush you dolt," she hissed. "We don't know where that deathstalker is!"

Ruby grinned. "I don't think it's here right now. But look!" She pointed.

"Is that... a church?" Weiss asked.

"Looks like one," Ruby agreed.

The building Ruby had found was in the center of the graveyard, and looked old beyond measure. It was constructed of four white walls in the shape of a rectangle, and sported a tall steeple in the back. The walls were collapsed in some places and sagging in others, and were covered in moss and vines. The roof was sloped like a v, and had gaping holes in most places.

Weiss had a moment of recollection. "It looks just like-"

"That church we found in the Tural Mountains, yeap," Ruby interrupted.

Weiss elbowed her. "Don't interrupt me you dolt."

Ruby giggled and pecked her on the cheek.

"You dunce!" Weiss shouted. "We're in the middle of a combat situation, a hunt, and you want to-"

The front of the church exploded outward, sending splintered beams and wood paneling everywhere.

Ruby grabbed Weiss and pulled her down, just in time to dodge a spinning wood pillar.

"Now who's the dunce?" Ruby asked. "Looks like you woke up our deathstalker!"

There was a loud roar from inside the church: an animalistic scream of challenge and the promise of death. A giant black scorpion with red markings covering its body scuttled out of the church, heading straight towards them.

"They don't call them deathstalkers for nothing, huh?" Ruby laughed. She stood and lodged the blade of Crescent Rose in the ground, then took aim and fired a barrage of rounds at the incoming Grimm.

Weiss sprang to her feet, mumbling to herself the whole time about dolts and incompetency. She formed a hasty glyph in front of the charging monster, and it slammed into the spinning white barrier with a frustrated roar.

"Wanna do the thing?" Ruby asked as she slotted another cartridge into Crescent Rose.

"The thing?" Weiss shrieked. "What thing?"

"You know," Ruby replied with an infuriating calm. "The deathstalker thing."

Weiss' eyes went wide. "You mean the -_oooo_h!"

"Yeah," Ruby giggled, as she fired another round from her high-powered sniper rifle. "That thing."

"Yes Ruby, let's do the thing."

Ruby stuck out her tongue. "Ew Weiss, that's lewd. In the middle of this forest?"

Weiss grit her teeth and focused on creating a series of glyphs. Which was difficult considering she couldn't get thoughts of Ruby pressed up against a tree with nothing but her-

She grit her teeth ever harder, and slipped into the mental concentration she called the Heart of Ice. It was a mental exercise she had made up early on, when she realized she needed to come up with a way to properly control her glyphs. Her face became expressionless and her mind became like a glacier, unbreakable and immovable.

Ruby was already fighting the deathstalker up close, using bursts of her semblance so that it couldn't land a blow on her.

Weiss crafted the series of glyphs she needed with all the skill and precision of a gem-cutter. Each needed to be impossible to escape from, or else Ruby could get hurt. That thought more than anything drove her to hammer each glyph in her mind into razor-sharp focus.

She finished, reviewed the sequence once more in her mind, and then began making a complex series of hand signs.

Spinning white circles appeared around the deathstalker's claws, tail, and each of its legs, and the beast roared in confusion as it writhed and struggled to free itself.

Ruby laughed and landed in front of it. She held Crescent Rose out behind her and fired a round, which, combined with a jump, propelled her into the air. She turned into a spinning blade, arcing straight for the deathstalker's vulnerable face. Without it's claws and tail, it could do nothing to defend itself. It screeched in rage.

And then something went wrong. Ruby's body suddenly went limp, like she had passed out in mid-air. Crescent Rose flew out of her hands, and her body slammed into the rock-hard carapace of the deathstalker and went careening off into the underbrush.

Weiss' mind went blank, but her training took over and she reacted in a heartbeat. She wasn't worried; she didn't have time to be. Ruby's life depended on it.

She created a propulsion glyph at her back and used it to fling herself at the creature, Myrtenaster held like a lance to deliver the deathblow.

But without her full concentration devoted to them, the glyphs keeping the deathstalker restrained were dissipating. Thinking quickly, she fired a canister of freeze dust at the monster's tail to keep it from impaling her. It froze solid with a sound like an icicle shattering.

She landed right in front of the creature's face, and all of its eyes glared up at her with a rage and hatred so deep that it almost scared her. Almost. She thrust Myrtenaster forward into one of it's two largest eyes, then discharged a full canister of burn dust down the length of the blade.

The deathstalker released a death-cry of pain and agony, and gouts of flame erupted from the chinks and cracks in it's armor. A great reeking smell filled the air; she had just flash-cooked its insides after all. Weiss waited a second to confirm that it was dead, but when the creature's struggles ceased she let her concentration slip and the glyphs dissipated.

Not wasting a single second to reload Myrtenaster or check herself for injuries, she sprinted off towards where she had last seen Ruby. After searching the tangled undergrowth for several long, terror-inducing moments in the dim light shining through the trees, she found her.

Ruby was tangled up in a cluster of thorns and half-hidden by a large patch of ferns. Weiss quickly cut the vines with Myrtenaster and pulled the younger girl free of their clutches.

"Ruby! Ruby are you alright? Can you hear me?" Her panicked screeches sounded deafening in the now-quiet forest.

Ruby's eyes slowly opened. "Weiss?" Her voice was hoarse. "Is that you?"

Weiss felt a flood of relief rush through her body. "Of course it's me you dunce, what the hell was that!"

Ruby tried to sit up, but Weiss pushed her back down. "What was what?" the younger girl groaned. "Where are we?"

Weiss was speechless for a few seconds. "W-We're on a hunt, or we were. We were fighting a deathstalker, and I used my glyphs to hold it in place. Right when you were about to kill it, you just went limp, like you had died or something. I was so worried..."

Ruby reached a hand up and cupped Weiss' face. "Hey, don't cry. It's fine, I'm fine. I'm right here. I'm not leaving you."

Weiss took a deep breath to calm herself. "Alright. Fine. You're fine." She reached down and ran a shaking hand through Ruby's hair, brushing out stray leaves and twigs. "Good. But what _was_ that?"

Ruby frowned. "Well I dunno, I remember fighting the deathstalker now, but then when you caught it in your glyphs I..." The brunette's eyes suddenly went wide. "Weiss. I had a nightmare."

"W-What? But I thought they were gone?" Weiss stuttered. "I thought they had stopped?"

Ruby looked down at the ground, but her distant eyes were somewhere else. "I did too... I remember fire, and falling, and then... a church?"

"A church?" Weiss' voice dripped with disbelief. "You saw a church in your dream? Like the one right over there?"

Ruby nodded and looked over at the white church in the center of the graveyard. "Yeah. It wasn't this one, but it looked just like it. I remember now. It was on fire. And then..."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "And then what?"

Ruby shook her head quickly. "Nothing. It's silly anyway. Oh crap, I need to find Crescent Rose." The brunette moved to sit up again, but Weiss pushed her back down.

"Ruby, what was it?" It was more a command than a question.

The younger girl bit her bottom lip. "I mean... do you really wanna know?"

Weiss simply stared at her, and Ruby seemed to crack under the weight of her gaze.

Then Ruby let out a long breath and hung her head. "Fine. I... I saw you die."

Weiss felt like she had been punched in the gut. "You what?"

"I saw you die okay! We were in this big battle, and you were fighting this giant black, I don't know, _thing_, and then you turned around and yelled my name, and then it stabbed you through the chest with a claw or something. Is that enough questions for today?"

Ruby pushed a stunned Weiss aside and stormed off, heading back towards the dead deathstalker and Crescent Rose.

Weiss watched Ruby's retreating back, but instead of chasing her, went about checking herself for injuries and reloading Myrtenaster's dust chambers. She could tell when Ruby needed some time to think.

* * *

><p>When she finally went after Ruby she found her crouched down, searching through the ruins of the church. She stepped up behind the brunette. "Find anything?" she asked.<p>

"Nope," Ruby muttered. "This place has been abandoned forever. All the markings on the wood and stuff have all rotted away."

"Do you think it caused your nightma- err, hallucination?"

Ruby didn't turn from her search. "Hallucination?"

"It's not a nightmare if you weren't asleep to begin with Ruby."

The brunette frowned and tossed a rotted chunk of wood away. "I guess. But this place is the only thing I can think of that might have caused it. First the church in the Tural mountains, and then one just like it here. I didn't tell you, but my cross was really hot - like burning hot - right before I passed out. It can't be a coincidence."

Weiss moved to stand next to her. "The one on your belt?"

"Eeyup."

"The last time that happened was-"

"When we went to the spot where my mother died, yeah." The brunette scowled and tossed another piece of wood off to the side.

Weiss sighed. "Ruby, are you okay?"

Ruby stood up and faced her with an irritated expression. "Am I okay? Well I dunno, the cross my mom gave me and told me to hold on to no matter what is doing some crazy stuff, I just passed out while fighting a deathstalker, and then I even got to watch my girlfriend die in a pretty freaking realistic dream."

Weiss shifted her weight to her other foot. "Sounds like a rough day."

Ruby looked confused. "Yeah. It was."

"And what about for me?" Weiss questioned. "I watched you almost _actually_ die. If I hadn't maintained my glyphs, that deathstalker would have torn you apart. So take a second to think about how I feel."

Before Ruby could respond, she moved closer and touched the brunette's arm. "I'm just worried about you. That's why I got mad. That's why I wanted to know what you saw in the nightmare. I'm worried."

Ruby's expression flickered from angry, to relieved, to remorseful. She hung her head. "I... Crap. I'm sorry Weiss."

The brunette stepped forward and pulled her into a gentle embrace. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you or stormed off like that. I'm just worried about you too. Watching you die in that dream really hurt, and I don't want to have to do it again. I thought it was real when it was happening. It scared me."

Weiss drew back and kissed her once, twice, three times. "It's fine. We're both just worried about eachother, as we should be. But let's not get so angry next time, hmm?"

A smile lit up Ruby's face. "Yeah. That sounds good."

"Partners?" Weiss asked.

"Yeah," Ruby responded after kissing her once more. "Partners."

* * *

><p>Night had fallen and found them back in their house at the top of the hill. Warm lamplight illuminated the room, and Ruby was noisily tinkering with Crescent Rose on the coffee table. Weiss herself was reclining on the living room couch with a book in hand.<p>

"So I've been thinking," Ruby started.

Weiss raised an eyebrow, but didn't look up from her book.

"I think I have to do something about these visions."

"So they're visions now?"

Ruby laughed. "Well you yourself said that they can't be nightmares if I'm asleep. And hallucinations is too long to say, so I'm just gonna call them visions."

Weiss turned the page of her book. "And you feel the need to do something about them now?"

The former heiress watched Ruby turn to stare at her out of the corner of her eye. "You serious? Weiss, who knows when that could happen again? What if I'm in the middle of a pack of beowolves, or, or fighting a nevermore or using my semblance? I mean, I'm not really worried about myself but..."

"Well I am," was Weiss' terse reply.

Ruby nodded. "And that's why I'm worried. Cuz I don't want you to worry."

A small smile perked up the corners of Weiss' mouth. "So what exactly, do you planning on doing about it _with_ me?"

Ruby grinned and went back to working on Crescent Rose. "I knew you'd want to come with me. Well basically, I need to talk to Jaerla."

"Jaerla? The raven faunus from Beacon?"

"Yeap," Ruby replied, popping the p. "She's the one that knew about my cross, she knows all this old lore, she knows her way around the wilderness, her people probably know about those churches, and I get the feeling she knows more about my mother more than she lets on."

Weiss put down her book to fix Ruby with a stare. "Ruby, first off, how are you even going to find her? And if you do, what are you going to say? 'Hey Jaerla, I found these weird churches in the woods and I started having visions, how do I fix them?'"

"Something like that."

Weiss huffed and flipped her bangs out of her eyes, then returned to her book.

"So uh, you'll come with me?" Ruby questioned.

"Obviously," Weiss huffed. "But the moment I come up with a better plan, we're doing it instead."

"Eh, fair enough," Ruby laughed. The brunette shifted to the other side of the coffee table so that she could work on another section of Crescent Rose, and something about her drew Weiss' eye. The younger girl was shadowed just right by the lamplight, and she was sticking her tongue out while she worked, a trait that Weiss found unbearably cute.

It didn't help that the black tank top she was wearing was just a size too small, or that her pants were a little tight around the rear, or that she obviously wasn't wearing a bra.

"You gonna read that book or just stare at me all day Princess?" Ruby asked without looking at her.

Weiss pushed her reading reading glasses further up on her face. "I'll do whatever I want, thank you very much you dolt."

"S_uuu_re you will," Ruby mocked. "Not that I mind you staring though." The brunette bent forward at the waist while she worked, giving Weiss a perfect view of her shapely rear.

Weiss blushed and buried her face in her book. She had just started to read again when suddenly Ruby was on top of her, pushing the book aside. Rose petals swirled around them; Ruby had used her semblance.

The brunette giggled and gingerly removed Weiss' reading glasses, then tilted her head and silenced the former heiress' protests with a soft kiss.

Ruby's lips tasted like the strawberries she had eaten for dinner, and Weiss gave up pretending to fight and slowly circled her arms around the brunette's back. She lost herself in Ruby's warmth, and their auras blended together in a way that was incredibly comforting and familiar. They fell into a familiar pattern, keeping the kisses slow and luxurious, taking the time to simply be together and try to express the love they felt for eachother.

Almost half an hour passed like this, and then Ruby drew back and rested her head on Weiss' collar. The older girl scoffed, but pulled the brunette closer to herself anyway. They shared a silence between them, one that was neither awkward or uncomfortable.

Weiss had just started to fall asleep when Ruby lifted her head and stared at her with a knowing smirk. "Oh c'mon Weiss, I know what you wanna do. You can't fool me."

The former heiress fought down a blush. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Ruby smirked. "Oh yeah? No idea huh?" The brunette leaned down and brushed her lips across the shell of Weiss' ear. "N_oooo_ idea at all?"

Ruby gave her ear a soft lick, and Weiss' mind went blank. She moaned and moved her hips upward so that Ruby's knee was resting in just the right spot. Catching the hint, Ruby started sliding her knee up and down, and Weiss' moans deepened. The brunette leaned forward and started pressing gentle kisses to Weiss' neck, and when the former heiress arched her head back and fully exposed it, Ruby changed tactics and started devouring the exposed skin.

Weiss writhed and moaned lower. She grabbed Ruby's rear with one hand, and tangled her fingers in the brunette's hair with the other.

Suddenly Ruby stopped moving her knee and drew her head back, then stared down at Weiss with a predatory grin. "No idea what I'm talking about still?"

Weiss' face was hot and her breathing was quick. She grabbed Ruby's chin between her thumb and forefinger, forcing the younger girl to meet her gaze. "Shut up and finish what you started, before I finish _you_."

Weiss hoped the menacing glare she put on was suitably threatening. Apparently it was, because after only a second Ruby gulped loudly and bent back down to start kissing her again.

Weiss held her back with hand. "Uh uh uh. You first," she said, pointing to Ruby's tank top. "You're about to find out what happens when you tease me."

Ruby grinned, sat up, and lifted it up and over her head. Weiss sat up and moved her mouth to Ruby's ample chest, lazily flicking an areola with her tongue. Ruby moaned, the first of many times that night.

Weiss flicked her fingers, and Ruby gasped in surprise as she found her arms restrained behind her back by a series of slowly spinning glyphs.

Weiss put her mouth on Ruby's ear. "This," she whispered, "is what happens when you tease me."

* * *

><p>Almost an hour later they lay on the couch together in a warm tangle of limbs and blankets. The brunette rested her head in the crook of Weiss' neck and breathed softly. The former heiress was rubbing slow circles onto her partner's back, and Ruby was humming a gentle tune.<p>

"You know I love you, right?" Weiss asked, her voice no louder than a whisper.

"Duh," Ruby replied. "You wouldn't have given up your whole future for someone you didn't care about."

Weiss was thoughtful for a moment. "Actually, I didn't give up my future. I think I finally just made one for myself, and that's probably the greatest gift you've ever given me. Thank you."

Ruby grinned and leaned up to kiss her, then said: "what about kisses?"

"Yes, well, those are nice too," Weiss replied with a smile.

"Mmm. Thought so," Ruby said. She sighed, and Weiss wrapped her arms around the naked brunette and pulled her close.

When Ruby fell asleep, their auras were so inextricably intertwined that they pulled Weiss asleep too.

Their hearts beat as one that night.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sorry this took so long to write; I've been writing a ton of one-shots lately to get them all out of my head. Expect more regular updates to this story now. Drop a review if you had a particular part you liked.<strong>_


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